Newly updated, Microsoft Office v. X for Mac ($499 list) continues to be a fine application suite that operates effortlessly. The new Office has been completely rewritten in Carbon (the programming system used by OS X) to perform better under Apple OS X.

Without a doubt, Office (in some iteration) is a must-have for the majority of Mac users. The question is: Do the new features and improved performance of v. X justify the upgrade price? For those who are happy with their current version of Office, the answer is perhaps not. While the four programs that make up OfficeExcel, Entourage, PowerPoint, and Wordeach have novel and useful improvements, they lack the kind of compelling giant steps that make people upgrade.

Still, opening applications and files was a few ticks quicker in Office v. X compared to Office 2001. That and the claimed stability improvements under OS X may make the investment worthwhile.

Office now offers crisper graphics thanks to Quartz, OS X's 2-D drawing technology. The new transparency effects look great on charts. Add-ons include Windows Media Player for Mac, as well as a large amount of clip art, presentation sounds, and fonts.

Entourage, the suite's e-mail and appointment program, has buttons at the top left of the main screen that provide easy access to different parts of the app. Addresses automatically format correctly for most countries. Entourage also automatically handles time zone differences: Simply tell the program what time zone or city your appointment is in and it will calculate the corresponding time for your region.

The program also has better IMAP4 support and improved compatibility with Hotmail and Mac.com addresses. MSN Messenger is built-in and can deliver updates from the Web. Don't look for Palm integration, though. That will come only after Palm releases a conduit for OS X.

Word gains Multi-Select, a handy method for selecting discontiguous text, and a way to clear formatting quickly. Excel now has Auto Save and Auto Recover. PowerPoint presentations with rich media can be saved flawlessly to CD-ROMs and other storage media, a constant headache in the last release. And users can now put nifty QuickTime effects in their presentations.

About the Author

Troy Dreier is a technology writer and editor based in Jersey City, NJ. He’s the editor of OnlineVideo.net, senior associate editor for StreamingMedia.com, and a former staff editor for PC Magazine. He’s @tdreier on Twitter.

Microsoft Office v. X for Mac

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